I had plans to meet up with Coach Ed and a few others from our team, as he and others are all Virginia Tech alumni. My only ally for the game was Susan, who I'm not sure was rooting as much for LSU as just against VT.
I was expecting a battle between the two teams, but as we now know, it wasn't much of one. Early into the 1st half, LSU was dominating. With the early start the next morning, everyone bailed out on watching before halftime.
Susan and I decided to watch a while longer, before we could no longer stand the smokiness in the bar ourselves. We planned to go and listen to the game in her car, and maybe just sleep in the car itself. After all, everyone was camping about 12 miles away from Annapolis, and neither of us much felt like driving there, setting up camp in the dark, and dealing with tear-down of the campsite at o'dark-thirty the next morn. Besides, I had way too many beers watching football all evening.
We got to Susan's car and almost instantly I fell asleep. So much for listening to the rest of the game. I woke at 2:17 in the morning, and found myself highly uncomfortable, in some contorted position in the passenger seat. I debated leaving and going to sleep in my car, but eventually decided that it was safer sleeping in her car, with the two of us, in a guarded parking garage, rather than solo in my car on the street.
Susan needed to be at the race at 4am since she was officiating, so when it was time for her to wake, I walked to my car, drove to the race, and took a 1/2 hour power nap before it was time to get organized for the race.
The triathlon had a two-transition set-up, meaning our swim-to-bike transition and our bike-to-run transition were in two different locations. I'd never done a race like that before, and it was an interesting concept, but forced ourselves to be much more conscientious about what we placed in transition.
The finish line, where our cars were parked, and T2 (bike-to-run) were in the same area. We set up T2 and hopped on a bus to take us to T1, where we had racked our bikes the night before.
In T1, Holly, Talia, and I lamented about doing the race. It was Talia's 21st birthday. (She watched the game with us the night before and had a couple of shots, but overall was behaving.) Anyway, with the logisitics of the race and all, we all agreed we'd just get through it and next year this race is a no-go.
Matt Lynn was in a panic mode. He hadn't run since Eagleman (back in June). And with the two transition areas, he realized that he had left his helmet and his sunglasses back in Jenni Banks' car. Ooops. And had forgotten his wetsuit at home. (The wetsuit was not a huge deal, as the water was plenty warm. It was more for protection against the expected high number of sea nettles in the water.) Matt was eventually squared away.
Also during race set-up, I saw Robyn, Mary Lou, and Jess Harmon! Jess! Back from California! I found out she moved back to DC way back in January. It was good to see them and secretly wished they'd rejoin Team Z. (They were part of it all when Team Z was first formed.)
I hung with Kelly Green pre-race as we were in the same wave. I knew I wouldn't see her again. (She rocked with a 2nd place finish in our age group!)
OK, time to race. The cool thing about the race start, is that it was in the heart of downtown Annapolis. We swam in the Severn River, but it meandered through the boat harbor, and then hugged the Naval Academy. Cool concept, but not the best swimming. The swim was less than a mile, but seemed like 3. I was so glad to get out of the water. I saw Talia in T1 and she agreed that it was endless.
Time to bike. The bike course started out in downtown Annapolis, but afterwards, the course was nothing special. A nice thing was that the bulk of it was out-and-back, so I saw several other Team Z'ers from earlier waves on their return leg. I was a little weak in my biking (after all, I had maybe about 3 hours of sleep and perhaps a slight hangover). And my nutrition was suffering. I didn't eat a big enough breakfast (ONLY a Boost and a Clif Blok). I was downing my gels and my Accelerade (lost a bottle during the ride), but it was far not enough.
I was glad when the bike leg was over.
So, the run course was changed for some reason, and we looped concentric circles around the Navy-Marine Corps Stadium (NMCS) before doing and out-and-back in one direction and an out-and-back in another direction before finishing inside the NMCS. The run started out in the grass (which I hate), and with the hundreds of others running on it before me, parts of it were sloppy. At least on the out-and-backs I saw several teammates, including Talia who was drinking Mike's Hard Lemonade (during the race)... after all it was her 21st birthday. She whispered to me that she was getting stomach cramps, but we both just laughed. Another plus, was at the cross point of the out-and-backs, our Team Z cheering committee was out there in full force. Fantastic. I was proudly wearing my LSU visor during the run and Ed gave me a little grief.
Swim: 36:38 (1.5K)
T1: 3:53
Bike: 1:23:01 (40K)
T2: 2:55
Run: 1:13:39 (10K)
Finish: 3:20:03
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